Today I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with one of my new friends Shawn McBryde. Sean McBryde is a fellow Penn State student here and interestingly enough, we share the same name! Sean is 18 years old from Indianapolis, Indiana. He has two sisters, one of which is 8, and the other playing basketball for the University of Arizona. Shawn however, has not had it the easiest when it comes to parents. At a very young age Shawn’s parents got divorced and growing up wasn’t easy. Since he was too young to understand, he was always wondering why his parents weren’t together, why he had to switch places between weeks, and basically what was going on.  Nonetheless, Sean still sees both his parents a lot and has a good relationship with both of them.

If you couldn’t tell just by looking at him and his toned arms, Sean is a sports guy. In high school, he played basketball, rugby, and football and he has been surrounded by sports his entire life. His passion not only includes sports but mostly just getting active and working out. It helps him clear his mind and puts him in a better mood when he can be on the field with a football in his hand or just working out. Other than sports, Sean is interested in a lot of things. Sean is one of the biggest fans of Marvel movies and can talk about them for hours. He says that he is at the theatre on every release night and he just loves everything about it. His favorite movie is the most recent Avengers movie that came out just a few months ago. Aside from movies, he likes to spend time with friends, relaxing, playing video games, and listening to music. Some of his favorite artists include Khalid, Kendrick Lamar, and Jay Z.

From our conversation I found that Shawn and I had pretty similar high school lives. I played lacrosse and golf for my school and I loved getting outside on a nice day. For me, my favorite part of lacrosse was the fact that I got to become so close with a group of people and it felt like they were family. Although I am not as much of a movie guy, I can relate in the sense of TV. I watch a ton of Netflix and my favorite shows include Black Mirror and The Office. Most of the artists that he liked I liked as well, and after we both looked through our Spotify playlists, we found that we had a lot of similar music which was cool to see.

Shawn was born in Indiana but in 2009, he moved to Pennsylvania for his mom’s new job as a representative for Disney. He said that he really liked it in Pennsylvania but he did hit some rough patches along the way. In grade school, he was sometimes made fun of and stereotyped for being one of the only black kids in the school. Although that situation blew over eventually, he ran into a major issue in high school. The girl that he liked was white and her parents didn’t want her to date him because of the color of his skin. I found this insanely offensive and prehistoric. I could not believe that in this day and age someone would be mistreated so badly. As well as that situation in Highschool, in general he finds himself to be feeling a little awkward in some situations. Shawn says that when he walks into a store or something of that matter it sometimes feels like people just look at him differently like he is some sort of bad person but when he is with his friends, who were mostly white in high school, he wouldn’t feel the same way.

However, in college, Shawn seemed to embrace his race a little more. He felt very welcome here with all of the different types of people and the mixture of races, cultures and other differences. He says that he can walk around and see all of the different types of people and it is almost refreshing to have this change. Some of the positive encounters that he has had with race is being accepted in to a group of friends that was mostly white and liking them for the person he is.

Shawn’s father and his grandfather are from the DRC in Africa. His dad came over to the states, attended the University of Indiana, and is now working in a hospital in Miami as a surgical technician. I found it incredible that he came from a place where there is a lot less opportunity than in the US, and turned that into a college education, and a career in a very meaningful field. Although in recent years he has only seen his dad a couple times a year, he still loves him dearly and when I asked who his role model is, he said his dad.  I also asked Shawn if he had ever been to the DRC and saw how his grandfather and dad lived and he said no but he is planning to take a trip out there after college.

Media-wise, Shawn spends most of his time in the theatres and on YouTube but you can also find him watching cable TV and scrolling through his Instagram and snapchat. I told him a little about what we had been learning about in class and he was interested with the topic of the media portraying a fake image and not believing everything you see. He said that he knew people in the Ferguson riots and they were portrayed on the media in a way that was untrue and made everyone look like criminals. He also says that he doesn’t like to be on social media a lot and would rather get his entertainment from watching classics or sports.

As for Celebrations, he is a religious Christian so he spends his Easter and Christmas mornings in church. Aside from that, he visits his dad’s side of the family for Kwanza and he says he loves it because he gets to connect with people that he hasn’t seen in a while and it is like another big Thanksgiving.

Shawn chose Penn State because it was close to his mom, who he loves dearly, and because he loves the social aspect. He likes the fact that it is a big school with a lot of different people and he has the opportunity to meet a plethora of new friends. Also, since he is so big into sports, he loves the idea of going to a school with such a strong football program and looks forwards to all the home games this coming fall.

I had really nice time talking with Shawn, someone that I have never met before; it made me think why people stereotype other races. Shawn is as normal as any other human, had normal interests, and is a motivated young man. Although we came from different backgrounds, we are very similar in the way we are now. However, the way that he got to where he is now was unfortunately harder than me. One of the things that he had to deal with was the fact that his parents were divorced. I cannot imagine thinking of this and getting through my day. This shows how strong of a person he is to not let this phase him in his life. Yes, he admits is was confusing and hard, but the fact of the matter is that he powered through. Another thing that I did not deal with was racism. Almost all of the kids in my school were white and I have unfortunately been racially separated most of my life. I have never had a true black, Indian, Muslim, or Asian friend until I met Shawn. I think that it is one of the problems with some of the places in the U.S. The town I live in is 94% white which is not healthy for the kids growing up and it can lead to racism and biases in their later life. I think that children should grow up around a diverse group of people to teach themselves that diversity is a beautiful thing. There are just a lot of things that Shawn unfortunately deals with on a daily basis such as feeling like he is different, or getting looks. It is unfair that some people are able to live their life just the way they want to without being judged, and then there are others who are always getting looks and being judged. One of the things we talked about was the fact that a lot of the judgement is not verbal. It is the difference of gazes that he gets compared to his white friends; it makes him feel uncomfortable and he finds it confusing,

I think that assignments like these are going to be some of the most important tools in the near future, for promoting a more diverse and accepting world. Just from this assignment I made my first good friend who was different than me. These things are going to change the new generations thinking in a positive way when the issue of diversity comes up until it hopefully isn’t even an issue anymore. I am grateful every day for my life, how I was raised, and the opportunities that I am going to have later in life because of my open mind.